God Said “Gevalt”

Are you a SCOIT (Suffering Catholic of Insulted Taste)? Have you white-knuckled your way through “Ashes” and “Hosea,” and bitten your tongue as your PinterEst pals gush over empty tomb rolls?

PIC empty tomb rolls. “Gather ’round, children, as I tell you a tale of a marshmallow named Jesus, who melted. Now eat His grave. EAT IT!”

In the spirit of ecumenism, I would like to remind you that Christians by no means corner the market on ghastly religious kitsch bordering on blasphemy. As your token mudblood Jew who is allowed to make fun of stuff like this, I present

For Passover. Because, in the words of Sepharidic Medieval philosopher Mosheh ben Maimon, when you want to convey an ontologically freighted story of misery, death, loss and salvation, you want to do it in the most oogly googly, felty welty, puppety wuppety way possible.

There’s no artifact involved in this one so maybe it doesn’t qualify as kitsch… but it’s in the same vein. I visited a church (Protestant) recently in which the Pastor gave a brief sermon to the children before the main event. He told them that Jesus’ spread arms on the cross was like him giving them a hug. Even my three little boys looked horrified.

Maya Resnikoff

Those puppets are used for keeping very young kids awake and invested in the seder- kids who aren’t really old enough to enter into the depth of what the plagues really meant for the people of Egypt. But you start somewhere. I don’t know that that’s kitsch, it’s just preschool.

Josh

Is that an Eye of Horus on the left pinky? What do the Illuminati have to do with the plagues of Egypt? If they were behind the plagues and today they bring us Nicki Minaj and Kei$a…I think I’m starting to finally understand how the entertainment industry REALLY works.

RoyMix

It is the death of the first born:

Adorable, no? Up there with the hugging, but probably not as theologically problematic as a vanishing marshmallow.